On Friday, that domination, which has made the Huskies the consensus top-ranked team again, resulted in a clean sweep of the conference's major awards, highlighted by junior Breanna Stewart's selection as player of the year for the second consecutive season.

Kia Nurse, the poised and polished Canadian point guard who came to Storrs straight from her nation's senior national team, was named the conference's top freshman.

Geno Auriemma was picked as AAC coach of the year for the second straight time. It's the 12th time that he has been conference coach of the year dating to his first selection as Big East coach of the year in 1988-89.

"I want to thank my coaches because they play such a large part of the success we have," Auriemma said. "And we have a lot of our players sitting up here [receiving awards]. If I didn't have them on my team, I wouldn't be here. But personally, I thought Matilda Mossman at Tulsa did the best coaching job in the conference this season. But we take great pride in what we do and how we do it. When your peers recognize you for that, it doesn't matter if this is the first time you've won or whether you've done it before."

There was a time not so long ago, and it lasted for 10 years, when Geno Auriemma would hear, with an ever-increasing tone of frustration, how much some Big East coaches detested playing its postseason tournament at the XL Center.

None of the selections was unanimous. The 11 league coaches who vote for the awards are not allowed to choose their own players.

Stewart, the reigning national player of the year, was the only collegian to play for Auriemma's world championship team last summer in Turkey. She is one of 12 UConn players selected conference player of the year, but just the fifth (Kerry Bascom, Rebecca Lobo, Diana Taurasi and Maya Moore) to be so honored multiple times.

Courant sportswriter John Altavilla offers a quick preview of the women's tournament this weekend at Mohegan Sun arena.

Courant sportswriter John Altavilla offers a quick preview of the women's tournament this weekend at Mohegan Sun arena.

She is UConn's leading scorer (17.4) and enters play in the AAC Tournament with five 20-plus scoring performances in her past seven games, including a season-high 29 points in Monday's 88-65 win at South Florida. Stewart also had 11 rebounds and seven blocked shots in the game that wrapped up the Huskies second consecutive 18-0 conference season. Stewart averages 6.9 rebounds and has 75 blocked shots. She has recorded six double-doubles and recorded a career-high eight assists in a win against Tulsa on Jan. 7.

Stewart (1,797) also has an outside shot of joining Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis at 2,000 career points this season. On March 7, 2010, Maya Moore scored her 2,000th career point. She is the only UConn player to do that as a junior. Moore ended her career as the only player in program history with more than 3,000 (3,036) points.

"I wouldn't be here without the help of my teammates and coaches," Stewart said. "And we are all looking forward to what lies ahead for this team."

Auriemma won his 900th game on Feb. 3 against Cincinnati and is the winningest coach percentage-wise in the history of women's basketball (908-134, 87.14 percent). He is 190 victories behind career-leader Pat Summitt, the former coach at Tennessee.

The Huskies will attempt to win their 30th game in Saturday's quarterfinal. They already have 19 30-win seasons in the past 21 years. Ultimately, they are after their eighth straight Final Four, third consecutive and 10th overall national championship.

Nurse, the youngest player on Canada's fifth-place finisher at the FIBA World Championships, made an immediate impact after joining the starting lineup in time for the home opener against Creighton on Nov. 23. The Huskies have won all 28 games since Nurse and Morgan Tuck were promoted by Auriemma.

"The only vulnerability she has is she tends to get down on herself if she doesn't play well," Auriemma said. "That gets her off track. But she is not afraid to make mistakes like some freshmen are. She just plays.

"The coaches, her teammates, have absolute trust in her, which is not easy for a freshman [to earn]."

Nurse has scored in double figures 20 times, including her first 10 games as a starter. Her career-high 22 points came against Creighton, a game in which she made all four three-point attempts in 31 minutes. But what's been even more impressive about her has been her pristine assist/turnover ratio.

"I came here because I wanted to become the best player I could be and get to the Olympics, and this is a great start for the first year," Nurse said.

Nurse, the 13th UConn player named conference freshman of the year, picked up a career-high nine assists in 30 minutes at South Florida and now has 99 with only 52 turnovers in 30 games.

Only 22 players in Auriemma's era have scored more than 300 points as a true freshman. Nurse has 327. Her three-point percentage is 42.1 and she is one assist and two steals from becoming the sixth freshman at UConn to reach the 100-50 plateau.